Visions
by Tafkae
Summary: This is a dumb story, and there will be NO continuation because I hate it. But I've been getting deaththreats from people who read the trailer... so here it is. sigh I hope you're happy.


Visions

by TAFKAE

**_Author's note:_**_ If you liked "Yami," there's a good chance you'll like this. I personally think it doesn't suck quite as bad._

_                                                                                                                                                      …but it still sucks._

               Bakura looked around in horror at the scene before him. There had obviously been a struggle here, but the police hadn't arrived yet. Broken glass lay in various places, and a chair was lying on its back at the foot of a display case, one in which the front was shattered. He climbed over it and headed up the stairs, wincing as a wave of pain shot up his side. He looked down at it and found that he was wounded, and badly, perhaps he'd been involved in that struggle himself? Ignoring it for the moment, he started up the stairs again, something told him Yugi was in trouble and might need his help. But he couldn't have prepared himself for what he was about to see, even if he'd been warned.

               The upstairs of the shop was where Yugi and his grandfather lived. Now it was in a complete shambles. Furniture was shredded, walls were dented, and the carpet was stained with blood. There'd been a fight up here too, but this one had been much more high-octane. He didn't want to see who'd won, or even who'd been fighting - he just wanted to know for sure, was his friend okay? He made his way to the door of another room, moved his hand slowly toward the knob, and cautiously swung the door open...

               ...to see Yugi lying on the floor, his blood soaking into the carpet, his eyes locked wide open in a state of unbelievable fear. He felt his hand reach for the Millennium Puzzle, and take it, and heard the voice of his yami say, "Well, he won't be needing _this_ anymore..."

               "Bakura!!"

               - and then he found himself back at school, where he'd been a minute ago, with Jounouchi's face inches away from his. He yelped and jumped, but since he was sitting down, all this served to do was hurt his knees and cause his chair to fall over backwards. "Rrgh... pain..." he managed to choke out.

               "You all right?" said Honda. "That was kind of scary..."

               "I guess it's what I get for falling asleep in class," Bakura laughed insincerely, getting to his feet and lifting his chair to its original position. 

               "Uh..." Honda raised one eyebrow. "You weren't sleeping."

               Bakura blinked. "What?"

               "Worst space-out case I've seen since the Duelist Kingdom," Jou added. He looked like he was actually doing some thinking, which was highly uncharacteristic of him.

               Yugi chose then to speak up. "You almost looked dead."

               If he'd said something else, anything else at all, Bakura might have been able to keep his composure. But he wasn't. He stared into Yugi's eyes for a moment, then quickly excused himself and left the room.

               Jou watched him go. "What was that all about?" he asked.

               "I don't know," Yugi muttered, a look of concern on his face. "But whatever it is, it's sure got him upset..."

~~~

               Bakura splashed some water from the drinking fountain onto his face. Yes, he'd had dreams where people died before, even where his friends died, but never during lunch break, and _especially never when he'd been awake, and they'd always faded away within a few days, so that now all he could remember about them was that he'd had them at some point. But this one wasn't just hanging in the air like a foul odor, it was still burning fresh in his mind, like he still had one foot in the dream, or that it wasn't a dream at all, but rather..._

               He shuddered. If you owned a magical talisman of great power, or _two_ in his case, visions couldn't be entirely unexpected. But it was just like in movies: they would always find a way to come at the most inopportune times. He hoped there wouldn't be any more, especially in math class, which was next, and for which he was running late. He walked briskly back to the classroom and took his seat, then took out two notebooks. One was for math. One was not.

               He looked to his right and noticed Yugi watching him worriedly at the same time he heard the teacher enter the room. Quickly, he flashed his friend a thumbs-up and turned toward the teacher.

               Yugi saw this and smiled, then produced his math notebook from his pack. He'd need to remember to talk to Bakura after school.

~~~

               Concentration was a problem. Every time he made a serious effort to take notes, the image of the dead Yugi flashed past his eyes again, and he caught himself glancing nervously at the live one each time, just in case. It seemed so real! It was as though he'd actually been there, with the blood pounding from his side, taking the Millennium Puzzle because Yugi wasn't around to use it anymore, and though he wasn't sure, the evidence strongly suggested it was his fault.

               After a particularly intense image that left him headachy and reeling, he picked up the second notebook, smaller than the one he was using for math, and started drawing.

~~~

               "Bakura! Oh, dang it..."

               For the third time that day, Yugi cursed his short legs. He stopped in the middle of the hallway to catch his breath, and by the time he'd straightened up again, Bakura was long gone.

               "Drat _and bother," he said a bit harshly, scowling and crossing his arms. "I'll probably have forgotten what I was going to talk to him about by tomorrow..."_

               "Hey, Yug!" Jou's voice piped up over the crowd. "Wait up!"

               "Did it really look like I was going anywhere?" Yugi laughed as Jou caught up with him.

               "It's like a flash flood. I was worried you'd get washed away," Jou replied equally jokingly, then held up the notebook in his hand so his friend could see. "Here."

               The notebook was in a nonstandard size, spiral bound, with a blue cover, and had a label on the front that read, "Property of Bakura Ryou." "Yeah?" Yugi asked, taking it. "Well, I just missed him."

               "I know. I'm just letting you hold it 'cause I'd probably lose it."

               He found himself chuckling. It wasn't funny when people made fun of other people, but when they made fun of themselves that was a different story entirely. "Yeah, I bet." He leaned up against a wall, ignoring the fact that he was squishing his backpack, and sighed. "Can you believe how much science homework we got? I'm going to be up all night working on it!"

               Jou seemed to be ignoring him and had bent to the ground. "What're you doing?" Yugi asked.

               "Something fell outta that notebook," Jou replied, picking up a folded slice of paper and opening it. "Whoa!"

               "What is it?" Yugi asked, his curiosity overwhelming the nagging feeling that he shouldn't look, and leaned over Jou's arm to see. It wasn't detailed at all, but it appeared to be a murder plan involving Yugi, Tokyo Tower, and a casually dropped banana peel. Tokyo Tower was a labeled triangle, and the people were stick figures, and the other things were scribbles with arrows pointing at them. On the right side of the paper was scribbled "Death Number 47."

               "This is officially freaky," Jou muttered. "I'm avoiding him for a while."

               Yugi shook his head. "No, this isn't Bakura's handwriting," he said. That settled it. It could only have been done by one person. He sat down with the notebook in his lap, hesitated a moment, and then opened it.

               There were 133 death plans in all, some of them interspersed with the neater handwriting they knew as Bakura's, but mostly in the essentially illegible scrawl of his yami. Yugi's feeling of disgust rose with each one, but after number 120 (dismemberment by crocodiles) he began to wonder if these were anything more than a way to vent pent-up anger. Jou had even laughed at a couple, like being eaten alive by Uruk-Hai and trampled by a herd of rampaging yaks. After number 133 they stopped entirely, and the first thing found was a sketch of the duel between Saruman and Gandalf, as portrayed in the movie. "I didn't know he was into Tolkein," said Yugi quietly.

               "Who?"

               Bakura's neat handwriting adorned the bottom of that page. _Saruman vs. Gandalf = my other vs. Yugi's?_ From there the untidy scrawl continued it. _Nice picture. Do I get to be Saruman? Oh no, I don't want to kill_ him, just rough him up a little, if his back breaks then it's because he's puny.__

               Yugi suddenly got an intense feeling of indignation that he knew wasn't his own.

               For a few more pages, the good drawings continued, though apparently they were what Bakura did when he had some deep thoughts he needed to think, and Jou was getting increasingly confused with each one. One was even a self-portrait, but it was surrounded completely by an extra-long soliloquy about the pros and cons of suicide (and there seemed to be a lot more pros than cons). It took Yugi and Jou almost ten minutes to read it all, and about three-quarters of the way through, they were forced to leave the school by one of the meaner teachers (read: one of the ones who carried a stick). They read the rest of it from just outside the wall that marked the grounds. At the end, Yugi checked the date. September fifth. "This was written three days before we left for the Duelist Kingdom," he pointed out.

               "Well, then, that explains all the stuff about preferring death over hurting his friends," Jou replied, a little shell-shocked. Yugi nodded and turned the page.

               His eyes widened, and he could have sworn his heart stopped right then and there. In all the perfect detail of the previous sketches, there was a picture of himself, lying on the floor somewhere, in a pool of his own blood, his eyes, even from the picture, appearing cold and lifeless...

               "Ah..." Jou said a few minutes later, when either of them was composed enough to speak again. "I'd say this is worse than all a hundred an' thirty-three death plots combined."

               "Why would he _make something like this?!" Yugi half-shouted. "It's... it's just..." He bit his lip and forced himself to breathe._

               Jou pointed at a spot to the left of and above the picture. "Maybe try reading' the artist's notes."

               Yugi tore his eyes away from the well-drawn carnage and laid them instead on the precise writing nearby. Perhaps to distract himself, he decided to read it aloud. "'Damn. I thought drawing it would make it go away, but it hasn't. This image has been haunting me for a full hour and a half now, and I don't know how to stop it!'" He paused upon reading the next sentence to himself, then read it out loud. "'I know what it is, and I know it's my fault, but I don't want to see it again. Whether in real life or in dreams.'"

               "Wow," Jou breathed. "Deep, man. Deep."

               Yugi ignored him; he'd noticed another bit of writing below the picture. "Here's some by his yami..." He shuddered. "'Nice picture. I absolutely love what you've done with the blood here - took a shot to the jugular, I see - does it have a title? I have an idea. How about "another one bites the dust"?'"

               "Creep," Jou muttered. "That's just _sick_."

               Yugi slammed the notebook shut. "You're right. It is. We... we've got to talk to him about this... maybe it'd help him..."

               By now Jou noticed his friend was trembling considerably. He got to his feet and helped Yugi do the same. "Come on, let's get going. We've wasted enough time in or around this fine center of learning."

               "Yeah," Yugi mumbled, and they started back on their way to the Turtle Game Shop.

               _There was no Puzzle in that picture._

               He jumped. His aibou had been so quiet that day it was almost like he wasn't there. _What do you mean? he ventured._

               _Just what I said. Bakura seems to draw exactly what he sees. There was no Puzzle in his picture. Thus..._

               _Thus, whoever killed me... he reeled slightly in saying the words. __Whoever killed me took the Puzzle. Big surprise, he snapped._

               _It's significant, Yami persisted calmly. __It doesn't say it specifically, but I think Bakura believes his yami is the one behind it. And frankly, I don't doubt it either._

               Yugi shivered. _Everything seems to happen to me anymore..._

               There was a short pause, and then: _I won't let this one happen._

               He forced himself to blink, and the rest of the trip home was spent in silence.

~~~

               The next day could have gone better. Bakura sat down at his desk the next morning, and the first thing that happened was Yugi passed him the blue notebook. He hadn't noticed it was missing. However, he took one look at Yugi's face and instantly confirmed his worst fear – the notebook had been read.

               _Oh, bloody hell._

               Yugi scribbled something on a sheet of paper and passed it to him. He opened and read it.

               _"We need to talk. ASAP."_

~~~

               At lunch, he quickly became cornered. "It has something to do with you spacing out at lunch yesterday, doesn't it?" Yugi almost demanded. "The last drawing in that notebook, I mean. The one where I'm dead."

               "Look, I don't like it either, all right?" Bakura sighed. He had already finished his lunch and, as it had been pretty insubstantial, was now sort of knawing on the paper bag and only half-aware of it.

               "But you drew it."

               "Only to get it out of my head, and that didn't work!" He sighed again in exasperation. "We both know we're not getting anywhere with this conversation."

               "And that's because you won't tell me what happened to you yesterday!" Yugi groaned. "We could make a lot more progress if…"

               Suddenly, the room twisted around Bakura, and he found himself in another house. He didn't recognize this one either, but he was in a lot of pain. Some of it was his side, which, though healing, was not better, but most of it came from fresh wounds scattered across his body. He walked down the hallway and into the kitchen. There, on the floor, were two people, both of them obviously foreigners. Their skin was dark, but not black; and while the woman had black hair, the man had blonde that went out in every direction several times. Of course, both of them were dead and bloodied, and he was holding a rod and a pendant that were both engraved with the Millennium Eye…

               His eyes went wide. Two people he didn't even know, and he'd just killed them, brutally at that. Just then, he realized he'd been shouting something, and didn't know really if he was trying to form words, but he just turned tail and ran out of the house through the front door, and kept running, tears streaming from his tightly closed eyes, until he crashed into something – a light pole. Who'd have known. He looked up – at least he was far away from the house now – away from the smell of blood – he didn't have a clue where he was, but at least he was away –

               He faintly heard someone calling his name, and looked around for its source, then gave up and went to walk away.

               _Thud. The light pole had moved to block him. Vaguely confused, he stepped to the other side and started that way. It moved again._

               "Damn it, don't you realize how important this is? I have to get out of here!!" he yelled at it.

               "Bakura, snap out of it!" it shouted.

               And then it dawned on him. This wasn't really happening, this never really happened, and he was still at school staring with blank eyes at whoever was yelling at him… He reached his hand out and grabbed one side of the pole and found not wood, but cloth, and then all of a sudden he was standing in the hallway on the other side of the school building, staring awkwardly at Yugi, with one hand holding his arm just below the shoulder. He quickly withdrew the hand. "I've just gone and made a fool of myself, haven't I?" he asked with more than a hint of dread in his voice.

               "I'd say at this point, that's the least of your worries," Yugi pointed out, looking more concerned than ever. "For one thing, math class is about to start, and Takahashi-sensei doesn't appreciate lateness." He looked up at the clock. "We'll talk after school." Then he broke into a run headed back toward the classroom.

               Bakura watched him go, then started walking. He really didn't care if he got in trouble – it was just "one of those days."

               _Well, that_ was interesting…__

               He jumped, then quietly responded. _Yes, it is like you to take interest in dead bodies, isn't it?_

               _What dead bodies? This time his yami's voice sounded even more sadistically interested than before._

               _You mean you didn't… He trailed off, his mind racing. His other hadn't seen the visions? He'd only been reacting to Bakura's reaction?_

               _No. But you're going to show me._

               By this time, he'd reached the classroom. He bit his lip as he sat down in his chair, and decided that no, he wasn't going to get him high on carnage. His yami, of course, wouldn't take "no" for an answer. _I said, you're going to show me!_ When Bakura didn't respond, he got a little frustrated. **_Show me, damn it!_ And then he growled a little and started rifling through his companion's memories.**

               Bakura shuddered almost imperceptibly, reflexively closing himself off to any stimulus and blocking his yami out of his mind. He'd be punished for this, he knew, but it had to be done. His yami was the last person he wanted finding out what those visions were about… at least firsthand. At least yet.

               He didn't learn anything at all in math that day.

~~~

               "Bakura!" Yugi shouted, elbowing his way through the tangle of bodies in the hallway. "Bakura, wait up!"

               Bakura didn't. Yugi assumed he hadn't heard him, and kept going, intent on not losing him. It was like he was avoiding him or something. He vaguely wondered if it had anything to do with that picture (duh, he thought to himself, of course it did) and then he was outside, running after his friend. "Bakura, _wait!"_

               _I don't think he understands how serious this is..._

               Yugi grunted a bit. _Well of course not. If he did, why would he be running?_

               _If you'll let me help out, we could probably catch up a lot faster._

               He nodded once, and let the magical energies of his Puzzle overtake him again; and within a few minutes he'd caught up, and found himself grabbing Bakura by the shirt and pulling him into an alleyway – _Hey, what are you doing?! Stop it!!_ He thought frantically.

               Yami Yugi hesitated, then pointedly let go, still staring into Bakura's frightened eyes. "Gomen nasai," he said with an almost imperceptible bow, effectively apologizing to both at once.

               "Iie," Bakura replied, almost not noticing he was talking to the hikari Yugi again. "No, I-"

               Yugi held up one hand and cut him off. "Just tell me what you saw."

~~~

               "...and then I was back at school," Bakura finished. Both boys were sitting on crates opposite each other, and the one had given up on avoiding the subject.

               Yugi bit his lip. "Well." He thought for a moment, then continued. "You know, we have no way of knowing if these are true..."

               _There's a good chance they are._

               _Are you sure? He wondered nervously._

               His yami paused. _I didn't say sure. I said there's a good chance. But it's not a chance I'm willing to take._

               "They almost have to be," said Bakura quietly. "I _know_ they are." His mind was racing; why did it have to be him, why did it always have to be him and his friends?

               _Most intriguing. The tone was calculated, plotting. _If they're true, then that means he'll die at my hand, doesn't it? I do like the sound of that.__

               _No! he thought frenetically. __Please, no! I don't know where those visions are coming from, but I can't allow them to become true!_

               "Maybe..." Yugi started. "Maybe they're just _possible_ futures?"

               "Let's hope so. Either way, I'll try to stay under control as best I can," said Bakura reluctantly, then stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulders again. "See you Monday."

               _You can try all you want, his yami said coolly as he and Yugi started in opposite directions. _You won't be seeing him Monday. He'll be dead by then.__

               He shuddered. _Not if I have anything to say about it!_

~~~

               He had a hard time getting to sleep that night, and he'd have a hard time staying that way, but he wouldn't be able to wake up, either. He'd had many dreams about running in the past, but this was different than the others. He was running down a hallway lined with old, golden stone. What he was running from, he wasn't sure, but it scared the bejesus out of him, whatever it was.

               Eventually, he reached a fork and went left. A voice came from behind him. " Bakura Ryou!"

               He stopped and turned around. A young woman was sitting atop a stone, under one of the torches. She had long, flat black hair and looked almost gothic, especially in the flickering light. "Who are you?" he asked her as calmly as he could, which wasn't very.

               "That's not the question."

               "What?"

               "The question is not a question of who I am but who you think you are," she spat. "You think you can ruin my plans so easily; well, it's not that easy. Sorry."

               "Excuse me?" He backed away from her one step. "What plans? What did I do?"

               The girl paused for a long time, just staring into his eyes with a coldness he knew from Yugi's aibou, but this one wasn't on his side, or in check. Then, suddenly, she jumped up and grabbed him by the collar ferociously. "You ruined it! You've ruined everything! I needed the element of surprise for my plan to succeed and if you'd just kept those damned hallucinations to yourself…" She chuckled. "Well, not only would I be victorious, but you'd be allowed to live." Then she growled and yanked him a bit closer. "But now, he's on his guard, and that will complicate things intensely. Still, you will both die."

               "_Who's on his –" Just then, it all clicked. "Yugi. So _you're_ going to kill him."_

               "Very good, little Ryou." She smiled evilly.

               "But you were the one who sent me the visions – why? If they ruin your plan?" He couldn't decide if he was demanding or pleading here.

               "Visions are more often received than sent. It was not my doing," she snapped. "And I am aware it was not your doing, either, but all the same, you have betrayed my plan, and you must die." By now she had pulled him within inches of herself, but he was too afraid to do anything, so he just stared into her eyes as she pulled one hand back like the blade of a knife and charged some sort of energy around it. "Trust. Feh! Friendship. Feh! Sometimes these are not the best alternatives, as life I'm sure would have taught you, had you lived to see more of it."

               Bakura cringed and turned his head away; he'd heard death hurt like hell, but never wanted to experience it to find out. Now, it seemed, he would. Unless something saved him, which he was certain it wouldn't –

               It did.

               Too fast for him to realize what was happening, he felt himself forced roughly to the side and thrown into the wall. He stayed down, but looked up, just to check what he was sure couldn't be true.

               It was.

               There was his other, standing a good distance away, his hand extended palm-first toward Bakura and his attacker. "So, I hear Public Enemy #1 goes out tonight," he said cockily.

               The girl's eyes went wide. "Nakhti…?" Then she seemed to regain her composure somewhat. "I should have known."

               "And I wasn't invited to his going-away party. Tsk, tsk. _Really,_ children, you need to learn some manners." Nakhti's smirk (as Nakhti seemed to be his name – Bakura hadn't been aware that his alter ego _had a separate name) grew with each statement, though his hair hid his eyes from view in the flickering torchlight._

               "Unfortunately," he continued, "you've forgotten one important thing." He turned his face upwards; it now held an expression of malice and psychotic rage. _"No one kills him but me!!"_

               For a second the air shimmered around the hand he had extended, then a ripple formed in the ground, like a cable was being hastily pulled up by one end. The girl cursed, then disappeared just a half-second before it would have hit her. As the dust cleared, Nakhti ran forward to where she'd been. "Kuso," he whispered. "That cowardly #####. She's gone."

               Bakura blinked, crawling a bit forward away from where his shoulder had hit the wall, full of questions, though the biggest one consisted of only one word… finally, he got up the courage to ask it. "Why…?" he ventured.

               Nakhti flinched, but then glared daggers at his companion. "Bite me, kid."

~~~

               ...and Bakura found himself sitting upright over his desk. He must have fallen asleep studying. He looked at the clock – eleven-thirty. He wondered groggily if Yugi would still be up at this hour, and then said yes, probably he would, since Jounouchi was spending the night...

               Tonight.

               His eyes widened as it dawned on him what, and where, and how, and that it was now, and that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be too late. He didn't live far from Yugi's house, so it would be feasible. He threw on a jacket and ran out his front door, quickly calculated what would be the shortest way, and started on taking it.

               Ten minutes later, he arrived, out of breath, with the sort of detached feeling that he only got when he knew something terrible had happened or was going to happen. He glanced through the front door – Yugi was asleep and drooling on a magazine, and Jou was looking at him with an ambiguous smirk on his face.

               _There she is. I'll kill that #####... Nakhti's words were a hiss more than anything else, but he was very angry, that much was clear._

               _No! Bakura tried the door; found it unlocked, which surprised him; and walked in._

               Jou looked up. "Wha -? Bakura? What're you doing here at quarter to midnight?" he asked.

               _How am I supposed to know if...? he wondered._

               _Ask who's there. It's awfully hard to see in this light. Nakhti's voice had a cocky quality to it, like this wasn't the real reason he was issuing this order._

               "Wh- who's there?" Bakura asked into the darkness.

               "That's not the question," Jou said, apparently before he could catch himself.

               "You're right. I already know the answer." So what was to happen now? He struggled to recall the vision he'd tried to push from his head. Was it that Yugi died because he was here, or because he wasn't, or was it pointless, and either way Yugi died? He shrank back a bit, imperceptibly shifting his feet into a better position for what he figured would come next.

               Jou, or the thing using him, smirked again. "Then you also already know what I'm about to do, don't you?" He held up something which, in the dim light, Bakura couldn't recognize, until the moon flashed its reflection off it.

               A knife. A very sharp knife. He gasped involuntarily and in less than a second went through all the immediately possible courses of action he could take, decided on the best one, and acted on it. "Yugi, look out!"

               Yugi's eyes opened slowly as Jou started to bring the knife down. He caught the glint out of the corner of his eye and managed to roll just in time with a yelp, leaving the knife to eat only a few strands of his hair. He stumbled back a few steps, leaving his back against a counter, and got a good look at his attacker, and his big eyes got even wider. "What the- _Jou?!"_

               "It's not Jou, Yugi!" said Bakura. "I don't know who it is, but that's who killed the people in the visions!"

               Yugi felt a pull from his aibou, stronger than ever, as Jou rounded the opposite end of the counter. _Bakura's right. That's definitely not him. May I...?_

               His own voice was panicky here. _In life-or-death situations, don't bother asking!_

               Yami took over and ducked quickly to the side barely half a second before the knife hit, shattering the glass in the counter. He wondered briefly why Sugoroku didn't hear that before remembering that he was out of town for the weekend (surprise surprise), and having to dodge again.

               "Just surrender," said Jou matter-of-factly. "It's your best chance for survival."

               "How about not," Yami replied, circling around to find a better place in the shop. However, in the dark he didn't see it, and Bakura's shout of warning was too late, and the chair seemed to be right in his way, and it tangled in his legs and pulled him down. He managed to break his fall, but not fast enough, and Jou soon had the knife pointed at his throat.

               "Then this is the part where you die," he said slowly and deliberately.

               Bakura decided to do something stupid. He jumped up and pulled on Jou's arm, which did get him away from Yugi for a moment, but no longer than that, as the arm Bakura had chosen to grab was not the one holding the knife. A split second later he was on the ground with his left side bleeding into his coat.

               Fortunately, a split second of distraction was all Yami needed. He used it to kick Jou in the stomach – _You're not supposed to hurt him! His aibou wailed. _And he's not supposed to try and kill us either, but I don't see that happening,_ he replied – and duck away while he was still winded. "Come on!" he shouted, grabbing Bakura by the arm and pulling him up the stairs._

               Jou had just caught his breath and followed them upstairs, but they were nowhere to be seen. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," he whispered, still breathing too heavily to hear them through the wall.

               Bakura held his hand under the light that a streetlight sent into the room. It was crimson. "Damn," he hissed.

               Yugi glanced over and saw it, and his eyes widened; his friend had been wounded badly, and at the rate he seemed to be bleeding, perhaps fatally. _This is all my fault,_ he thought quietly. _He was just trying to save me!_

               Then his eyes narrowed again. _He succeeded, too._

               "Well," Bakura wheezed, pressing himself into the wall by the door, "Step One is in place..."

               Yugi blinked. "What's Step One?"

               "Buy a bit of time to figure out what Step Two is," Bakura chuckled weakly.

               "Time's not something you have," said Jou's voice quietly, peering around the door behind which they were hiding. "And I'm not going to let my guard down this time." He placed the knife into a position from which it would be easy work to slit the throat of whichever boy moved first. Yami glared into the streetlight's reflection off it, realizing he had no options left, save one...

               _No! Yugi screamed. _You'd have to send Jou, too! And you know I can't let you do that!__

               _Yugi, please! It's the only way!_

               _NO!!_

               Bakura glanced at his friend, almost able to sense the turmoil inside him. Suddenly it dawned on him. _He could have ended this at any time! He realized with a start._

               "The Puzzle or your life," Jou demanded, extending a hand toward Yugi.

               Yugi grabbed the Puzzle defensively with one hand and pulled it a little away. _Though I wonder if there's any difference, he thought absently, __and he'll probably kill me anyway..._

               "No?" Jou asked in mock surprise. "Well then, I guess the latter will be the one that you lose."

               Bakura gasped inaudibly. Everything seemed to be playing out to the letter, from the bleeding side to the knocked-over chair and now to Yugi's death, but he knew it wasn't going to happen that way, he wouldn't let it!

               Jou brought the knife around on the inside and made a swift movement in towards Yugi's neck. Yugi flinched back and instinctively threw one hand up, palm facing Jou, and Bakura shouted, and then...

               Well, actually, it was difficult to discern what happened next. It was like hearing something shatter, and maybe a scream, but knowing you didn't hear anything at all, and seeing a flash of light when you know you saw only darkness. And then the next thing they knew, Jou stopped in his tracks, fell to the floor, landed with a dull _thud behind where he'd been standing a moment earlier._

               _*RYOU!!!*_

               Bakura reeled backwards from the force of the voice, but was too exhausted to say anything.

               _*You and your little friend may have beaten me this time... but I'll be back... and Nakhti....* It paused. _*We still have a score to settle...*__

               And then it was gone. Bakura sighed, letting his back hit the wall (though it hurt terribly to do so). Yugi prodded Jou with his foot apprehensively, and Jou stirred a bit, then sat up and rubbed his head. "Unh... geezus, I feel like I got hit by a bus..."

               Yami breathed a sigh of relief and retreated, letting little Yugi back into reality. _It's over._

               Bakura muttered something incomprehensible. "What was that?" Jou asked, blinking once.

               "I said, 'You think _you've got it bad,'" Bakura repeated, louder than the last time._

               Suddenly, the independent facts of Bakura being there and them all being in Yugi's house in the middle of the night came together for Jou. "How'd _you_ get here?" he asked, pointing at him with his other hand.

               "Walked," Bakura wheezed. "Don't think I can walk back, though." He opened his eyes a bit, then closed them again. "And can you please point that thing somewhere else?"

               It was then Jou realized he was holding a knife. He yelped a few choice expletives as he fumbled to get it away from him. "How the hell did _that -_?"

               "You wouldn't believe us if we told you, and there's no time," said Yugi matter-of-factly. He stooped down next to Bakura and pulled that friend's arm over his shoulders. "Go downstairs and call an ambulance, fast!"

~~~

               "I'm glad we finally got that all straightened out," Yugi sighed, burying his head in his arms where they lay on his desk. It was Monday, ten long days later, and had been quite a pickle to get out of, though they'd managed to clean up sufficiently that all they had to do when Sugoroku returned was explain why his store smelled like Lysol. (Yugi had to really lay on the charm to get out of that one, though it almost disgusted him that he had.) Jou had taken full responsibility for finding Bakura, and pleaded the fifth as to where.

               Jou pulled his head out of an old Dr. Slump book and looked at him. "Yeah, but I still feel really bad 'bout it..."

               "There's no need to."

               Both of them looked up to find Bakura standing there. "Bakura?" Yugi asked in disbelief. "I didn't think you'd be back in school so soon!"

               "Neither did I," said Bakura with a small smile. "But then again, I've had worse..."

               "You'd better be kidding," Jou mumbled. "You don't get much worse than... what's this?"

               Bakura averted his eyes and bit his lip for a second before answering. "Uh, twenty-one stitches and I'm guessing half my blood is from other people......." He held up one finger. "But I broke my leg once. That's worse, isn't it?"

               "It heals slower, that's all I can think of," Yugi stated. "Oh, and sometimes you'll end up with one leg shorter than the other."

               "Aw, B.S," Jou protested.

               "What I wonder is, what did you _do?_" Bakura asked, the question obviously directed at Yugi.

               Yugi blinked. "I thought _you did something."_

               "What?"

               "That definitely wasn't me," he continued. "I thought _you_ were the one that did something to beat... whatever it was."

               Bakura scowled and paused. _Did you...?_

               _No. But it's good, either way. There'll be some investigation to be done..._

               Slowly and deliberately, he brought one hand up in front of him and examined it closely to try and find something he didn't know he was looking for. Yugi and his other didn't know how the thing had been forced away, Nakhti wasn't any help either (as usual), and Jou didn't even know what had happened, really. That left only one suspect. And that suspect was himself. "_I_ did that, huh?" he wondered abstractly, a bit shell-shocked.

               "That's what it looks like," Yugi replied with a nod. "It's like something out of a bad shounen manga..."

               "But then, who doesn't love a bad shounen manga?" asked Jou, grinning.

               Bakura raised his hand.

               "You don't count," Jou grunted.

               The other boy growled almost inaudibly and proceeded to sit down at his desk. Yugi watched him, then turned back to Jou. "I think you hurt his feelings."

               Jou looked evasively from side to side, then buried his face in the Dr. Slump book again.

~~~

               They all had a much easier time concentrating in classes that day.

*OWARI*

Did you all like it? 'Cos I sure don't. But people have been saying they'd kill me if I didn't put it up. YOU GOT YOUR WISH PEOPLE! I HATE THIS STORY!!! BUT I'LL PUT IT UP ANYWAY, _BECAUSE MY VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF FANS TOLD ME TO!!! **I SURE FREAKIN' HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY!!!**_

… anata ga kirai desu …


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